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Tilka led the first tribal revolt against the British, fighting against the amoral seizure of historically Santhal lands.
Introduction
The Pax Britannica is so firmly established that the idea
of overt rebellion is always distant from our minds, even in a remote
State like Bastar.
– B. P. Standen, Chief Secretary to the Chief Commissioner, Central Provinces, 1910
1
In February of 1910 the tribal population of the princely
state of Bastar in eastern India rose in rebellion against a small
British force stationed within the kingdom. This event, referred to as
bhumkal (earthquake), established Bastar as a major battleground for tribal (
adivasi)
2
revolt during the colonial period. Almost exactly 100 years later,
in April 2010, 76 members of the Indian Central Reserve Police Force
were ambushed and massacred by Naxalite rebels, most of them
adivasis, in the thick jungles of the Bastar region.
3
The puzzling fact about Bastar, however, is that unlike so many
other regions of India beset by tribal conflict, it never came under the
direct control of the British during the colonial period.
A large body of historical literature has documented how British colonialism gave rise to widespread rural unrest in India.
4
During the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there
was a major increase in the number of tribal revolts throughout the
country. Kathleen Gough has noted that ‘British rule brought a degree of
disruption and suffering among the peasantry which was, it seems
likely, more prolonged and widespread than had occurred in Mogul times.’
5
Ranajit Guha writes, ‘For agrarian disturbances in many forms and
on scales ranging from local riots to war-like campaigns spread over
many districts were endemic throughout the first three quarters of
British rule until the very end of the nineteenth century.’
6
Along these lines, scholars have shown how new colonial policies,
such as the commandeering of forest lands and increased rural taxation,
led to widespread discontent and rebellion among indigenous groups. Eric
Stokes notes, for example, that ‘resentment against [moneylenders]
boiled over most readily into violence among tribal people like the
Bhils, Santals, and . . . the Gonds’.
7
Historians have also shown that after independence, the new Indian
government did not reform a number of colonial-era policies, especially
those dealing with forestry,
8
and tribal conflicts continued to occur throughout the country,
especially in former areas of direct British rule like Bengal, Bihar,
and Jharkhand. The Naxalite movement became the main vehicle for tribal
revolt in contemporary India.
But the fact that Bastar, a former princely state ruled by
a Hindu dynasty, was one of the epicentres of tribal violence poses a
major challenge for the literature linking colonialism and contemporary
conflict.
9
Although the British did exert final authority over the native
states, princes often had large amounts of internal discretion within
their territories, and these kingdoms—at the very least—featured less of
a colonial footprint. Why then has Bastar experienced such intense
periods of tribal rebellion—both in the colonial and post-colonial
period?
This article makes two central arguments in offering
answers to these questions. First, using a wide array of primary source
material, I demonstrate that during colonialism, tribal conflict began
in Bastar precisely because of increasing
British influence in the state. Three specific policies were implemented
in Bastar that engendered tribal revolt: colonial officials took direct
control over the forests, they displaced tribals from their land, and
they heavily interfered in succession to the throne, which upset the
native population. Second, I show that the post-independence Indian
government continued—often in uncannily similar ways, as I detail—most
of the same colonial-era policies in the region that had initially led
to tribal uprisings. These decisions in Bastar led to the rise of the
contemporary Naxalite insurgency, which is only the latest incarnation
of tribal unrest in the region. The case of Bastar, therefore, reaffirms
the central role of British colonialism in producing tribal conflict in
India by showcasing its effects even in areas that never formally came
under the ambit of direct rule. Importantly, however, the continuing
violence in Bastar concurrently implicates the post-colonial government
in failing to end the root causes of the bloodshed.
Despite its remote location, the political developments in
colonial Bastar that led to persistent rebellion provide important
insights for other states throughout Asia. The British practice of
retaining areas of indirect rule within a colony was taken from India
and exported to later colonial territories such as Burma and Malaya.
10
Therefore, understanding contemporary violence in other
post-colonial states in Asia—ethnic separatism throughout former areas
of indirect rule in Myanmar, for example—can be informed by analysing
what first transpired in Bastar.
This article contains four major sections. In the first
two, I discuss the general history of tribal revolt in colonial and then
post-colonial India. In the final two, I examine these broad trends
within the kingdom of Bastar, again in the colonial and post-colonial
periods.
Tribal revolts in British India and the princely states
Colonial rule in India produced several new policies that
had deleterious consequences for the indigenous population of the
country. In the broadest sense, the British approached the jungles with
an overarching goal of bringing ‘primitive’ peoples under the control of
a modern, centralized bureaucracy.
11
This led to the official classification of tribal populations—a
chief example was the institution of the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871,
which sought to control the movement of certain tribes with a history of
criminal activity.
12
But under the Act all members of a designated tribe were considered
criminals, even if they had never committed a crime, which led to
widespread social stigmatization.
Another major change dealt with forest policies and tribal
land displacement. Colonial rule marked the first time in Indian
history that a government claimed a direct proprietary right over
forests.
13
This was something the preceding Mughals, for example, had not done.
14
The British state became the conservator of forests when it passed
the Indian Forest Act of 1878. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forest
lands that
adivasis had used unfettered for
centuries were suddenly kept in reserve, a practice that did not change
for the rest of the colonial period.
15
With British control of the forests came the concomitant rise of
moneylenders, traders, and immigrants, and the influx of these new
intermediary groups led to widespread
adivasi land displacement.
16
These are only some of the major changes instituted during the
colonial period; myriad smaller developments—such as the introduction of
money rather than a barter economy—also transformed the nature of
tribal society during the course of British rule.
Consequently, revolts among the indigenous population
became a routine occurrence during colonialism, especially in the
nineteenth century. For instance, in 1855 the Santhals rebelled; in 1868
the Naikdas; in 1873 the Kolis; and in 1895 the Birsas. This is only a
small smattering of the total number of conflicts. Guha has documented
over 110 different colonial-era peasant revolts,
17
and Gough records at least 77 since the advent of British rule.
18
Colonial administrators, however, only directly governed
three-quarters of the population of India; the remainder lived in
semi-autonomous princely states. These areas did not experience nearly
the same level of tribal discontent or conflict. Despite having a
reputation as feudal autocrats, many princes pursued liberal policies
towards the same tribal groups that rebelled in British India. In
Rajputana, for example, both the Bhil and Mina tribes were incorporated
into the structure of the princely government because Rajput leaders
recognized them as the original inhabitants of the land. These tribes
were also charged with ceremonially placing the
rajatilaka
(a red powder mark used during the coronation process) on the brow of
the newly crowned king. In Jaipur, the Minas were designated the
guardians of the royal treasury.
19
In Travancore and Cochin, tribal groups were given ownership of
their land, government subsidies to improve it, and were shielded by
special policies that limited the imposition of the outsiders who were a
major problem for
adivasis throughout British India.
20
In Jammu and Kashmir, many members of the Bakkarwal tribe were employed as tax collectors (
zaildaars) and became an important part of the Dogra government.
21
In 1942, most of the rulers of the Eastern Feudatory States
approved a draft policy (although it was not implemented) declaring that
tribal groups ought to be the first claimants to forest lands and
should also have the right to be governed by independent
panchayats (village councils).
22
Princes displayed much more tolerance for tribal groups, and
adivasis
fared better under their rule than that of British administrators in
the provinces. The same encroachments on tribal society that occurred in
British India were largely absent in the princely states; as Verrier
Elwin, famed anthropologist of Indian
adivasis,
summarized the situation, it was ‘most refreshing to go to Bastar from
the reform-stricken and barren districts of the Central Provinces’.
23
Tribal revolts in contemporary India: the Naxalite conflict
Tribal revolts did not end once India gained independence
in 1947, and in some parts of the country they became endemic. In the
broadest sense, the new government did not end a number of colonial
policies that were the cause of tribal revolts—in fact, it exacerbated
the situation. For example, in comparing British and post-1947 forest
policy, Ramachandra Guha notes: ‘The post-colonial state has taken over
and
further strengthened the organizing
principles of colonial forest administration—the assertion of state
monopoly right and exclusion of forest communities.’
24
Richard Haeuber similarly writes: ‘Despite the transition from
colonial to independent status, forest resource management changed
little: exclusionary processes
accelerated . . . to consolidate state authority over forest resources.’
25
Consequently, tribal conflict continued into the
post-independence era, and the Naxalite movement became the face of
contemporary rebellion. Though no one knows the precise constitution of
the various Naxalite cadres, it is widely believed that the majority of
members come from poor tribal groups such as Scheduled Tribes.
26
Scheduled Castes are also involved in the movement. In the most general terms, Naxalites are poor peasants.
27
Brutal poverty and landlessness has historically been a major
problem among these groups, and the present Naxalite leadership has
successfully mobilized them around these grievances. Home Secretary G.
K. Pillai confirmed in a 2009 speech that the government and its
policies were largely to blame for the rise of Naxalism.
28
The term ‘Naxalite’ encompasses several different
communist militant groups operating guerrilla campaigns in various parts
of the country. These movements are not necessarily working in tandem
with one another. One of the historic and regional strongholds of the
Naxalites is the former British areas of West Bengal and Bihar. Naxal
insurgents also operate in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, and Andhra Pradesh (the
‘Red Corridor’), and have been active as far south as the Malabar
regions of Kerala. By some rough estimates, Naxalite cadres are
currently functioning in roughly 180 out of India's 631 districts.
The Naxalites come from the long and complicated history
of the communist movement in India. The Communist Party of India
abandoned violent revolution and adopted parliamentary politics in 1951,
which subsequently led to the creation of a splinter faction, the
Communist Party of India, Marxist. In 1967 another split occurred and
the far-left Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist was established.
Most contemporary Naxalite groups originate from the Communist Party of
India, Marxist-Leninist. These groups are Maoist, drawing on the
tactics of Mao Zedong's insurgency during the Chinese Civil War.
There are generally considered to be three historical
phases in the Naxalite movement. During the first, from 1967 to 1975,
the campaign began in West Bengal and spread to the surrounding regions.
The beginning of the conflict is dated to an uprising of peasants
against landlords in 1967 in the West Bengali village of Naxalbari
(providing the name of the movement). The uprising was led by former
Communist Party of India, Marxist member Charu Majumdar—the nominal
founder of the Naxalites—and most of the peasants involved in the revolt
belonged to the Santhal tribe. By 1975 the initial rebellion was
effectively stamped out. Then, from 1975 until the early 2000s, the
various Maoist groups became severely fragmented and had limited success
in carrying out attacks against the Indian government. Beginning over
the last decade, however, the movement reorganized successfully under
new leadership and has now come to pose a major threat to Indian
political stability. The culmination of the rebirth of the movement came
in 2004 when two of the largest Naxalite factions, the People's War
Group and Maoist Communist Centre, joined together to form the Communist
Party of India, Maoist. In 2006 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated
that Naxalites were ‘the single biggest internal security challenge ever
faced by our country’.
29
He later also admitted that the Government of India was losing the war against them.
30
Naxalites were estimated at one point to control one-fifth of the land mass of India.
31
In many of these swaths of territory they operate parallel
governments, grouping together villages into new districts, selecting
administrators, and setting up police stations, schools, and even courts
where oppressive landlords and moneylenders suffer retribution. The
insurgents are said to be armed with advanced weaponry such as AK-47s,
improvised explosive devices, and even solar panels to charge electrical
equipment. Their attacks are sophisticated, well-organized, and
extremely deadly.
32
The rebels are also aided in that they operate in the deepest parts
of India's jungles, areas which are often impossible to visit. In
Bastar, for example, as far back as 1881 the deputy superintendent of
the census for the Central Provinces wrote to his superiors that ‘there
is little prospect of a Census being possible [in Bastar]’ and also
noted that the figures from 1871 were ‘manifestly incorrect’.
33
Even today, travelling from Jagdalpur, the capital of Bastar district, to its surrounding villages can be difficult.
The violence in the Naxalite insurgency has been immense
over the past several years. According to conflict data from the
Worldwide Incidents Tracking System,
34
which is operated by the National Counterterrorism Center, 1,920
people died from Naxalite violence during the years 2005–2009, while
another 1,412 were wounded. The Indian government has responded to this
movement via a massive anti-terrorism campaign, begun in November 2009,
in which over 50,000 troops are involved (Operation Green Hunt). The
Naxalites, however, have continued their attacks relentlessly.
Given that princely rulers often enforced liberal policies towards adivasis,
and that the Naxalite movement began and is still strongest in former
areas of direct British rule, what accounts for the immense historical
conflict in Bastar? How is it that this small and isolated princely
kingdom became ground zero for tribal violence in both colonial and
post-colonial India?
British influence and tribal revolt in Bastar
The former Bastar kingdom is located in the state of
Chhattisgarh. During the British period Bastar was over 13,000 square
miles, or roughly the size of Belgium. It had a population, in 1901, of
306,501.
Adivasis constituted the largest
segment of the population, and Gonds were the major tribe inhabiting the
area. The state was governed by a lineage of Hindu kings who were not
adivasis
themselves but Rajputs. The founders of the Bastar state were,
according to legend, driven from their former home in Warangal by Muslim
invaders in the fourteenth century. They then settled in Bastar and
became high priests of the goddess Danteshwari, whom the tribes of
Bastar worshipped. The princely state was known for its unique
celebration of the Dasera festival. The raja is ‘abducted’ by tribals on
the eleventh day of Dasera and then returned to the throne the next
day, a ritual that symbolizes the close linkage between the
adivasis and their king.
35
During the pre-colonial period, Bastar had been
incorporated as part of the Mughal and then Maratha empire. Due to its
rough terrain and geographical inaccessibility, however, it always
retained a certain level of isolation—Deputy Commissioner of the Central
Provinces and Berar Wilfrid Grigson remarked that Bastar was a
‘backwater in Indian history’.
36
The entire region is one of the most heavily forested areas in
India (it is the site of the Dandakaranya forest), and colonial
officials often referred to Bastar as one of a number of ‘jungle
kingdoms’.
When the British finally broke Maratha power in central
India in 1818 they subsequently began to enter into a political
relationship with Bastar (a former tributary state of the Marathas), and
in 1853 the kingdom officially came under the system of British
indirect rule. Bastar State was included as part of the Central
Provinces administration.
The British immediately began to interfere in Bastar's
administration in three ways: by implementing new forest policies,
displacing tribals from their land, and heavily interfering in
succession to the throne—that is, removing rajas and replacing them with
compliant officials. At first, this interference in the state came
under the pretext of preventing human sacrifice. An official inquiry in
1855, however, showed that human sacrifice was not a local tradition.
The reporting officer wrote that it was ‘pleasing to find that there did
not exist . . . a tradition of human sacrifices. In the low country it
was said that these hill tribes never sacrificed human beings and for
once the account was strictly true.’
37
A more likely cause of intervention was the fact that Bastar had
extremely large iron ore deposits, as well as other precious minerals,
timber, and forest produce.
38
Over time, British influence in Bastar increased—beginning first
with forest administration—due to efforts to appropriate its natural
resources, and by 1876 colonial administrators effectively governed the
state, the raja ruling in name only.
Colonial influence bred rebellion in Bastar. The state
experienced two important tribal revolts during colonialism, in 1876 and
1910.
39
The cause of the first rebellion was trivial enough—the arrival of
the Prince of Wales to India. The diwan of Bastar attempted to arrange a
meeting between the prince and the raja. The
adivasis,
however, interpreted this as an attempt by the British to abduct the
raja, and within hours they mobilized in large numbers and prevented him
from leaving the state. Though traditionally referred to as a
rebellion, the conflict in reality was relatively minor and featured
little bloodshed. W. B. Jones, chief commissioner of the Central
Provinces, summarized the incident in a confidential report from 1883:
In March of 1876 a disturbance broke out at Jugdalpur, the
origin of which has never been quite satisfactorily explained. The
immediate occasion of the outbreak was the Raja's setting out for Bombay
to meet . . . The Prince of Wales. The people assembled in large
numbers and compelled him to return to Jugdalpur. Their ostensible
demand was not that he should not go, but that he should not leave
behind the then Diwan Gopinath Kapurdar (a Dhungar, shepherd by caste)
and one Munshi Adit Pershad (a Kayeth in charge of the Raja's Criminal
Court), whom the people charged with oppression . . . They simply
demanded that the two men mentioned above should be sent away.
40
Were the
adivasis rebelling
against the raja? The British themselves were sceptical. An officer sent
to investigate disconfirmed the idea, noting that ‘Relations between
Raja and subjects generally [were] good, very good.’
41
Commissioner Jones also noted that ‘the insurgents committed no violence and professed affection for the Raja’.
42
At worst, the
adivasis were upset with the
raja's choice of appointees. But another central cause of the
disturbance was creeping British influence in the state—for example,
Jones made sure to note that the
adivasis earlier in the year had reacted very negatively to new Christian missionaries who had arrived in the kingdom.
43
A number of new colonial policies combined to create a rising sense of embitterment among the tribal population.
After the death of Raja Bhairam Deo in 1891, the British
began to penetrate the princely administration ever more steadily. As
the raja's son, Pratap Deo, was only six years old at the time, the
British directly administered the state for the next 16 years. During
eight of these years the state was even governed by Englishmen. This
direct control over Bastar in reality also continued after Pratap Deo
became raja in 1908. Extra Commissioner Rai Bahadur Panda Baijnath acted
as superintendent during the last four years of Pratap Deo's minority,
and then continued to act as diwan after the raja finally took the
throne. E. A. De Brett, officer on special duty in Bastar, wrote about
Pratap Deo's lack of power, noting that he was ‘bound in all matters of
importance to follow the advice of his Diwan and has never taken an
active part in State affairs’. The chief commissioner of the Central
Provinces concluded later that ‘the Diwan was the virtual ruler of the
State’.
44
The 1910 rebellion was much more violent and widespread
than its predecessor. One of the chief instigators of the conflict was
Lal Kalendra Singh, the first cousin of the raja and a former diwan
himself. He had been angling for a return to power after he had been
removed by the British due to ‘incompetence’. He mobilized the adivasis
by declaring that if he was returned to the throne he would drive the
British out of Bastar completely. A contemporary report from a Christian
missionary living in Bastar, Reverend W. Ward, sheds some light on the
rebellion:
In the second week of February we first heard of the
unrest among the Aborigines south of Jagdalpur. Vague rumours were
afloat but none of a very serious nature. On the 18th a Christian living
among the Prajas—Aborigines—came to me with the story that the Prajas
were all armed and were moving toward Keslur, where the Political Agent,
Mr. E. A. De Brett, I.C.S., was camping, to make known their grievances
. . . A branch of a mango tree, a red pepper, and an arrow were tied
together, and sent to all villages in the State. The mango leaves stand
for a general meeting; the red pepper, a matter of great importance is
to be discussed and that the matter is necessary and urgent; the arrow, a
sign of war.
45
The entire state rose in revolt and the existing British
force of only 250 armed police was quickly overwhelmed. For weeks
looting, robbery, and arson plagued the entire kingdom. By the end of
February additional troops from Jeypore and Bengal had arrived and the
rebellion was finally put down. Hundreds of prisoners were taken,
including Lal Kalendra Singh, who was expelled from the state and later
died in prison.
The British conducted several inquiries into the causes of
the 1910 rebellion. The chief commissioner of the Central Provinces
summarized the British government's position in a December 1910 report
that stated:
from an examination of the evidence before them the Government of India were of opinion that a
too zealous forest administration might not improbably be the main cause of the discontent of the hill-tribes.
46
De Brett also conducted an inquiry on the rebellion and
discerned 11 main causes, ranking chief among them ‘the inclusion in
reserves of forest and village lands’.
47
Prior to colonialism, the rajas that ruled Bastar did not reserve forest lands, giving
adivasis almost unrestricted access to these areas.
48
Alfred Gell notes that prior to the arrival of British
administrators ‘the tribal population [in Bastar] enjoyed the benefit of
their extensive lands and forests with a degree of non-exploitation
from outside which would hardly be matched anywhere else in peninsular
India’.
49
Nandini Sundar similarly highlights that prior to British rule there was not even a recorded forest policy for the kingdom.
The colonial state began reserving forests in Bastar in
1891, especially areas rich in various kinds of forest produce. This
meant timber most of all, but also a class of items known as non-timber
forest product, which included rubber, medicinal plants, berries, and
tendu leaves, used for rolling tobacco. Due to this new reservation policy, entire
adivasi
villages in reserved areas were forcibly moved by colonial authorities.
Corporations, like those involved in the timber trade or iron mining,
entered areas where
adivasis had lived and were granted a monopoly right over forest produce. Once a forest area was officially reserved,
adivasis no longer had any claim to these lands and were charged fees for collecting produce or grazing in these areas.
50
L. W. Reynolds, another officer stationed in Bastar, noted the
singular importance of this policy of forest reservation in promoting
rebellion:
The proposal to form reserves was not finally sanctioned
until June 1909 and action giving effect thereto must therefore be
nearly synchronous with the rising. In his telegram of the 17th March
1910 the Chief Commissioner stated that one of the objects of the rising
was the eviction of foreigners. I believe it to be the case that in
connection with the exploitation of the forests Messrs. Gillanders,
Arbuthnot and Company, who have a contract in the State, have introduced
a large number of workmen from Bengal . . . the [tribes] resent the
introduction of these foreigners. It is not unnatural.
51
All of the contemporary reports pointed to the same causes—foremost, new forest policies that displaced
adivasis
from their land. Sundar also found that the main participants in the
1910 rebellion were from areas that suffered the most under new colonial
land revenue demands.
52
Despite the admission to an ‘overzealous’ forest administration,
British policy in Bastar did not change substantially in the wake of
rebellion. They continued to sign various forest mining agreements or
renewals of previous agreements—in 1923, 1924, 1929, and 1932. The 1923
agreement, for example, renewed a licence for Tata Iron and Steel to
mine Bastar's ‘enormous reserves of iron ore’.
53
Forest lands also continued to be reserved. As late as 1940 the
administrator of Bastar State wrote to the political agent of
Chhattisgarh States that ‘Most of them [
adivasis]
dislike the proposals for forest reservation . . . However if these
areas are not reserved it will be impossible to reserve any good teak
forests in the Zamindari.
(It is a most unfortunate
fact that the best teak areas and the thickly populated, well cultivated
Maria [Gond] villages coincide).’
54
Aside from new forest policies, the British also continued
to directly govern the state through various machinations, although
this, too, had been disastrous in 1910. In 1922 Rudra Pratap Deo died
without a male heir, and his daughter, Profulla Kumari Devi, was placed
on the throne as a child. One British administrator noted: ‘She is about
eleven years of age and no reference is made as to her eventual fitness
to rule, but this is unimportant as she could always rule through a
Manager or Dewan.’
55
Bastar therefore experienced yet another minority administration.
Then, in 1936, when the Maharani of Bastar died suddenly of surgical
complications in London, the British installed her eldest son, Pravir
Chandra Bhanj Deo, on the throne, although he was only seven years old
at the time. The Maharani's husband, Raja Prafulla Bhanj Deo, who was
the first cousin of the ruler of the nearby Mahurbhanj State, had been
passed over as a possible successor. This was an attempt to continue
directly ruling the state instead of turning over power to the queen's
consort. In fact, colonial administrators in charge of the guardianship
of Pravir Chandra were themselves confused as to the justification
behind his minority administration. Administrator E. S. Hyde commented:
I am not altogether clear what is meant in this case by
guardianship . . . It would, however, be of assistance to me and my
successors if our position could be defined. It is certainly an unusual
and somewhat delicate one, for normally when a Chief is a minor his
father is dead.
56
R. E. L. Wingate, joint secretary to the Government of
India, Foreign and Political Department, noted that passing over
Prafulla for the throne was against the queen's wishes:
It is her [the Maharani’s] desire that Profulla should
have the title of Maharaja and that he should share her role as Ruling
Chief, being co-equal with her and succeeding her as Ruler in the event
of her death before him, her son not succeeding to the
gaddi [throne] until his death.
57
Despite this, Prafulla—who had been educated and gained
high marks at Rajkumar College in Raipur—was deemed ‘exceedingly vain
and filled with self-conceit . . . he is a man of very questionable
moral character and completely unstable’
58
and was denied the throne. Prafulla had also been very popular with
tribal groups in Bastar. E. S. Hyde noted a meeting between
adivasis and Prafulla in 1936 after he had been passed over for control of the kingdom:
First of all the Mahjis told Prafulla that they had
confidence and trust in him and that he was their ‘mabap’ [mother and
father]; to this he replied that he could do nothing for them, that he
had no powers. He was willing to do anything for them but . . . he could
do nothing.
59
Even before the death of the maharani in 1936 there had
been a movement to install Prafulla as the hereditary raja, in ‘joint
rulership’ of Bastar with his wife; later came an attempt to at least
establish a council of regency and make him the regent.
60
Both movements were squashed by the British. They believed that
Prafulla was responsible for several anti-British pamphlets that had
appeared over the past several years in newspapers throughout India.
Administrators noted, however, that ‘there is no actual proof as the
printer's name is absent from the pamphlets’.
61
The British eventually even removed Prafulla as the guardian of his
children and deemed that he should not be allowed to enter Bastar
State.
62
The British found fault with almost all of the occupants
of the throne of Bastar, and managed to have them removed from power in
order to clear the way for direct colonial administration of the
kingdom. Lal Kalendra Singh was removed as diwan because colonial
authorities came to realise he was ‘totally unfit to be trusted with any
powers’.
63
Rudra Pratap Deo was a ‘very weak-minded and stupid individual . . . considered unfit to exercise powers as a Feudatory Chief’.
64
Prafulla Bhanj Deo was an agitator, unstable, and needed to be kept
away from his own children. And by the dawn of independence, colonial
administrators were already beginning to have serious doubts about the
abilities of his son, Pravir Chandra, who was heir to the Bastar throne.
The colonial history of Bastar after the mid nineteenth
century featured British officials taking control over forest lands,
displacing tribals, and finding ways to govern the state directly rather
than through native rajas supported by the local population. All of
these factors increased unrest among the adivasis of Bastar and led to two tribal rebellions against British rule.
Tribal revolt in contemporary Bastar: the rise of the Naxalites
After independence, Pravir Chandra was removed as the
official ruler of Bastar, and was relegated to a ceremonial position. He
retained his title as the raja of Bastar, as well as his personal
fortune. Bastar State then acceded to the Central Provinces and Berar in
1948 and became part of the new state of Madhya Pradesh in 1950.
Despite the history of tribal revolt in the region, the
new Indian government did not reverse many policies inherited from the
erstwhile British administration. Foremost among them was colonial
forest policy: just as the inclusion of forest and village lands as
reserves was the major cause of pre-independence rebellions, the
post-independence government continued and even exacerbated this policy.
From 1956 to 1981, for instance, one-third of the total amount of
forest felled in Bastar District was for a variety of development
projects,
65
and land displacement among
adivasis in the
region continued to constitute a significant problem. Similarly, the
continuing influx of immigrants and traders exacerbated
adivasi
discontent; these groups, often with assistance from corrupt local
officials, were able to privately reserve forest and village lands, and
buy forest produce at below-market prices.
Exceptional insight into this continuing maltreatment of adivasis
even after independence comes from the writings of Devindar Nath, an
Indian Administrative Service officer and collector of Bastar District
in the 1950s. He notes how adivasis were often cheated out of their land, relating a story from 1955:
Each of the tenure-holders found himself in possession of
property worth several thousands of rupees, but in their ignorance and
illiteracy, they were neither conscious of their rights of property, nor
had they any realisation of its value. Timber merchants belonging to
different parts of the country made their appearance in the villages and
purchased timber from the Adivasis for small sums. Gangs of labourers
were employed to fell trees in the cultivators’ fields, and transport of
teak on a large scale started. The Adivasis were not paid even a small
fraction of the value of their teak . . . the stage was set for complete
denudation of the Adivasis’ fields.
66
Furthermore, just as another cause of colonial-era revolts
had been interference in succession to the throne of Bastar, the new
Congress government also continued this policy. They began agitating
against Pravir Chandra almost immediately after independence, exactly as
the British had done against the previous rulers of the state. From the
perspective of the Indian government, simply removing Pravir Chandra as
raja would have upset the large tribal population in Bastar. Instead,
they relied on the well-worn colonial policy of declaring as insane
those rulers whom they did not support. In a letter to Lord Curzon in
1899, Lord George Hamilton, secretary of state, explained this policy:
I felt that, if ever it became necessary to take so strong
a step as deposition [of a prince], you would be less likely to
frighten the Native Princes generally if you took that step, not on a
plea of misgovernment
but of insanity.
67
For instance, in 1920 Raja Rudra Pratap Deo was briefly
banned from entering his state when he returned from a trip abroad. The
main reason was because he, on three occasions, refused to meet with the
British Resident stationed in Bastar, which was considered a sign of
his instability. He apologized, stating that a family member of his had
been ill at the time. He was also surprised by the British overreaction.
68
The post-colonial Indian government attacked Pravir
Chandra for similar reasons. The first step came in 1953 when the Madhya
Pradesh government had the prince's property taken from him and placed
under the Court of Wards, which they argued was necessary because Pravir
Chandra was insane. The prince was, by most private accounts, an
enigmatic and bizarre man. His British caretakers noted that ‘he has
always been delicate’.
69
His father Prafulla considered him a ‘young puppy whom the British have ruined’.
70
Home Minister G. B. Pant once wrote in a letter to a Madhya Pradesh
minister: ‘Some people say that he was almost an idiot. I cannot say if
that is absolutely correct; but there is no doubt that he is erratic
and whimsical.’
71
But the Indian government also made numerous frivolous
claims against him. For example, the secretary of the Ministry of States
complained in May 1953 that ‘the Maharaja had now grown an enormous
beard and his hair had come down right up to his waist. The nails of his
fingers are very long. He looks just like a Sanyasi [renouncer] . . .
His is not a presentable appearance.’
72
About a subsequent meeting the secretary also wrote: ‘He [Pravir
Chandra] said that he has taken to the practice of Yogic exercises. I
suggested that he was too young for that and that he had better marry
and live a decent family life.’
73
Finally, he recounted a conversation with the raja in 1953:
I told the Maharaja that he had acted very improperly in
not paying due respect to the President of India when the latter had
visited that part of Madhya Pradesh. The Maharaja in reply disowned any
desire whatsoever to be disrespectful but said that his inability to be
present at the President's arrival was due to his illness. He was then
down with high fever.
74
Even the evidence of insanity the post-independence state
used mirrored that of the British—Pravir Chandra's refusal to meet the
president (legitimate or not), like that of his grandfather, was taken
as proof that he should be removed as ruler of Bastar.
Pravir Chandra was embittered by losing his property. In
1955 he formed the Adivasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (Tribal Peasants Workers'
Association), a political organization that was partly created to help
restore his land, but also pressed for better policies for villagers in
the state. In 1957 he was recruited by the Congress Party (apparently
despite the fact that he was insane) to stand for election. He viewed
this as another opportunity to have his property returned. However,
Congress would not relent and the shaky alliance quickly ended. After
that the Indian government began to work towards removing Pravir Chandra
from the Bastar throne, intending to replace him with his brother,
Vijay Chandra. In their internal memos they make a clear link to the
past in pursuing this line of action:
The adivasis have seen and read the articles appearing in
certain news-papers regarding the Maharaja's derecognition. They have
taken a serious view and are stirring up agitation . . . There was a
similar move at the time of the death of his grand-father Shri
Rudrapratap Deo and the adivasis stirred up a violent agitation, but the
British Government was wise enough to put his mother on the Gaddi.
History will repeat itself now.
75
Congress finally succeeded in removing Pravir Chandra from the throne in 1961, and he was replaced by his brother.
The failure of the post-independence government to reform
colonial-era policies led to two major post-colonial tribal conflicts in
Bastar, both notable in that they featured the raja and the
adivasis
on one side and the new Indian government on the other. The first
occurred in 1961. After his deposition in that year, Pravir Chandra was
briefly arrested for anti-government activities, which led to the
adivasis
besieging the police station where they believed (incorrectly) he was
being held. For several days Bastar was locked in a state of panic. Huge
protests gripped the kingdom and the new raja, Vijay Chandra, was
unable to quell the disturbance because the
adivasis
refused to accept him as their king. Thirteen protestors were killed in
the ensuing violence. Thousands of signatures were collected to restore
Pravir Chandra to power, and G. B. Pant bemoaned that the ‘Adivasis
still continue to cherish their traditional feelings of respect and
loyalty to the erst-while Princes.’
76
The second major conflict occurred in 1966. On 25 March of
that year Pravir Chandra Bhanj Deo was gunned down by Jagdalpur police
on the steps of his palace. Though the police and the government claimed
that it was the
adivasis that had been
congregating near the palace who had led the revolt, most were in fact
armed only with bows and arrows. A subsequent investigation by Justice
K. L. Pandey also discredited this theory and blamed the police.
77
To this day the so-called ‘police action’ is highly
controversial, and it is widely believed that Pravir Chandra's death was
a political assassination. Though only a small number of
adivasis probably died, rumours still abound that hundreds or even thousands were killed.
78
The
adivasis in the former Bastar State
today continue to venerate Pravir Chandra. Since, 25 March has been
styled ‘Balidaan divas’ or ‘The Day of Sacrifice’.
79
While both the British government and the new Congress government
had a plethora of complaints about one ruler of Bastar after another,
the only group not to complain were their
adivasi subjects.
The continuation of colonial-era policies in Bastar opened
up a political space for the Naxalites. They became an important local
force when they entered the Bastar area in the early 1980s, mobilizing
villagers around their economic grievances—one of their earliest
promises was higher wages for collecting
tendu leaves.
80
Many of the earliest Naxalites came from tribal movements in Andhra
Pradesh, and they began a ‘Go to the village’ campaign in the Bastar
area to enlist tribal support. Two of the main initial recruiting
grounds for the Naxalites in Bastar were hostels and schools, especially
special schools for
adivasis. Youth hostels had
also been an important recruiting ground for communists during the
Telangana mobilization in the 1940s. The two main groups operating in
Bastar now are the Communist Party of India, Marxist-Leninist and the
People's War Group.
From the 1980s to the 2000s, the Naxalites enlisted tribal
support in Bastar by highlighting the failure of development efforts in
the region to improve the lives of
adivasis. On
the surface there appear to be many attempts at reform. In Bastar alone
there is an absurd number of overlapping development organizations: the
Community Development Programme, Community Area Development Programme,
Whole Village Development Programme, Drought Prone Area Programme, Hill
Area Development Programme, Intensive Rural Development Programme,
Tribal Area Development Programme, Intensive Tribal Development
Programme, and the Bastar Development Authority. However, while various
development projects have raised money for the Indian government as well
as private corporations,
adivasis have reaped
few benefits. For example, every year some 50 million rupees is spent on
development schemes in Bastar, but forest and mineral wealth in the
region generates almost 10 times as much for the government.
81
Another example is the Bailadilla iron ore mine in Dantewada, which
is one of the most profitable in India but employs no local
adivasis.
82
By the late 1980s—despite numerous development efforts—only 19 per
cent of the villages in Bastar were electrified, and there was only one
medical dispensary per 25,000 villagers.
83
Similarly, only 2 per cent of land in the entire Bastar region was irrigated.
84
An
Economic and Political Weekly piece on Bastar summarized the situation in 1989:
We have met representatives of almost all of the political parties, in addition to leading advocate [
sic]
and journalists. All of them are of the view that the Naxalite movement
is essentially a socio-economic problem. The failure of development
programmes, exploitation by middle-men and contractors, and corruption
among the officials are the most commonly cited causes. Some of them
even acknowledged the failure of the political parties to effectively
champion the cause of the adivasis.
85
Because development projects have not resulted in a higher standard of living for adivasis
in Bastar, tribal violence has intensified over time. Bastar State is
presently made up of the districts of Bastar, Dantewada (South Bastar),
and Kanker (North Bastar), and from 2005 to 2009 these three districts
experienced a total of 1,171 deaths and injuries from Naxalite violence.
This constitutes 35 per cent of the total number of Naxalite casualties
in India during that time span. Dantewada district alone experienced a
staggering 516 deaths and 472 injuries—it is the single deadliest
Naxalite-affected district in the country. In the end, it is
fitting—considering how little has changed for the tribes of Bastar—that
the name of the main contemporary Naxal front organization in the
region is Adivasi Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, almost the exact name of
Pravir Chandra's tribal organization formed in 1955.
Conclusion
The rise of the British in India in the eighteenth century led to a number of major adivasi
revolts throughout the country. Colonial officials implemented a number
of policies that aggrieved the native population—in the broadest sense,
they regarded tribals as primitive peoples that needed to be brought
under the control of a modern, centralized state. They took direct
control over and restricted access to forests, thereby displacing
tribals from land over which they had had privileged access for
centuries. While British officials implemented these policies in the
provinces, native princes generally enforced liberal policies towards adivasis, and tribal rebellion was much less severe in the princely states.
After independence, the new Indian government did not
reform many of the colonial-era policies that had led to tribal revolt
in the first place; for example, they continued to exercise complete
control over the country's forests. This, in turn, led to a continuation
of tribal rebellion in the form of the Naxalite movement. This
insurgency, driven mostly by poor adivasis, is still strongest today in areas of former British rule.
Given these two facts—that tribal revolts mostly occurred
in British provinces, and that princely rulers enforced liberal tribal
policies—it is surprising that a major centre of tribal conflict
throughout both the colonial and post-colonial period is the princely
state of Bastar. What accounts for the immense historical conflict in
this small and remote princely kingdom?
Using a wide variety of primary sources, I detailed that
Bastar State experienced extensive British interference during the
colonial period. Colonialism in Bastar led to the implementation of new
forest and landholding policies, the dismissal of several popular rajas
from power, and ultimately the rise of tribal rebellion in the region.
The case of Bastar therefore reaffirms the negative impact of British
rule on India's indigenous communities. While Bastar experienced
extensive colonial interference, it may not have been alone. Recent
historical work suggests that the roots of the Telangana conflict in
Hyderabad State, for example, may also have been due in large part to
British policies imposed on the
nizam.
86
But the case of Bastar also implicates the post-colonial
government in continuing and even exacerbating many colonial-era
policies that had initially led to rebellion—for example, removing
another of Bastar's rajas from power in the early post-independence
period. Furthermore, the socio-economic grievances that originated
during the colonial period have not dissipated in recent years, and
Bastar remains one of the least developed regions of eastern India.
Existing development projects have been beneficial to the state and
private interests, but have done little to assist adivasis
specifically. This explains the rise of Naxalism in the area, which is
only the latest incarnation of a long history of tribal revolt. The
colonial past, therefore, continues to cast a long shadow over the
ongoing tribal rebellion in the vast jungles of the Indian republic.
As British administrators began to colonize other parts of
Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they took
with them the belief that maintaining some form of indirect rule was
imperative to governing successfully. This was a lesson culled from the
Indian experience. And so colonial officials created the Shan States,
Chin Hills, and Kachin State of ‘Native Burma’ and placed them under
indigenous rulers.
87
In Malaya they likewise created the ‘Unfederated Malay States’ and placed them under the control of sultans.
88
Contemporary conflicts continue to rage in many of these regions—in
modern Myanmar, for example, former areas of indirect rule have seen a
number of ethnic separatist movements since independence.
89
The history of political developments in Bastar State
during colonialism can provide insights into explaining some of these
other conflicts across British colonial Asia. The case of Bastar
foremost prompts a fundamental question: was indirect rule in the
British empire truly indirect, or was it merely a facade hiding the
creeping influence of colonial administrators? If Bastar provides a
preliminary answer, colonialism may be responsible for violence
occurring even beyond the borders of direct rule. And whether the
post-colonial leaders of states like Myanmar and Malaysia have dealt
better with their colonial inheritances than the politicians of modern
India is a question that will go a long way towards determining whether
contemporary violence persists.
British planned famines to kill Indians:-
Can’t
say about rest of India. But in Odisha they were causing one famine
after another, hellbent on culminating a cultural genocide. Why they
wanted to exterminate Odias. Answer is simple, whichever people were
more rebellious and were not easily falling in line were being
exterminated. Odias had in a matter of 50 years rebelled against the
British twice. Hence the extermination and “Famine” was a more
acceptable, publicly defensible way to exterminate a population. Just
ask yourself how often have you heard about jallianwala bagh massacre
and how often the Odisha famine that actually kill...
(more)
